Mayor Mitch Landrieu will choose District B representative to New Orleans City Council 'in short order'

The bizarre saga of the empty District B seat on the New Orleans City Council apparently entered its final chapter Friday when the deadline for the council to act passed, shifting the right to fill the vacancy to Mayor Mitch Landrieu. The city's legislative branch has been hamstrung by two members' decision to boycott recent meetings, depriving the council of the five-member quorum needed to vote on the matter.

Stacy Head, the District B representative since 2006, was elected to one of the council's two at-large seats in April. She resigned her district seat May 2, triggering a 30-day countdown for the council to pick her interim replacement. That window closed Friday.

Head recommended urban planner Errol George as her interim successor. In line with tradition, the other members were expected to quickly ratify her choice, but the walkout by Cynthia Hedge-Morrell and Jon Johnson has prevented the council from voting, and all attempts at reaching a council consensus behind either George or some other candidate apparently failed.

Landrieu, who will become just the second mayor in modern history to fill a council seat, pledged Friday to act quickly. The mayor will have plenty of possibilities to choose from, as names of a dozen or so hopefuls had surfaced by week's end.

"Throughout this process, I've encouraged the City Council to come together to appoint an interim council member to represent District B," Landrieu said in a written statement.

"Now, according to the City Charter, that responsibility falls to me. I will fulfill my obligation in short order, so that the people of District B are represented on the City Council this month."

The council's next scheduled meeting is Thursday. Hedge-Morrell and Johnson have promised to attend.

Landrieu, who pledged to pick "an experienced and qualified person," urged residents, council members and other elected officials to recommend names to him to fill the post until a Nov. 6 election is held to choose a permanent successor for Head. The winner will serve until May 2014.

The unprecedented City Hall standoff started when Hedge-Morrell and Johnson, without warning, walked out of the council's May 3 meeting, moments after the council failed to approve a City Charter amendment they favored and moments before it was to vote on the George appointment.

Hedge-Morrell said her walkout was related both to what she called the "politicizing" of the proposed charter amendment, which would have changed the procedures for electing the two at-large members, and to some of her colleagues' "ongoing and implicit disregard for debate and discussion" that she said left her feeling "marginalized."

The walkout by the council's two black members apparently was triggered by their anger at three colleagues' insistence on delaying a vote on the charter amendment, which many black leaders believe would increase the chances of electing at least one black at-large member, but it then was continued to block the appointment of George, even though he is black.